Years active 1960s–present | ||
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Occupation Director Bluesfest Byron Bay Website Bluesfest Byron Bay; Bluesfest Touring Byron Bay; AIM Records | ||
Peter Bruce Noble OAM is an Australian entrepreneur active in the music industry for almost 50 years. He is best known as co-founder and festival director of the annual Bluesfest Byron Bay, which has been running since 1990. The 5-day festival is now held every Easter at the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, just north of Byron Bay, a New South Wales beachside town.
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Peter Noble’s significant contribution to the industry was recognised in 2014 when he was awarded The Rolling Stone Australia Award for his services to Australian Music. On Australia Day 2016, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to live and recorded music, to tourism, and to the community.
By the time Bluesfest turned 25 years old it had won 26 awards including four Australian Helpmann Awards for Best Contemporary Music Festival and Australian Event of the Year at the Australian Event Awards, nominations at the prestigious Pollstar Awards for Best International Music Festival, received 16 further award nominations. It was the only Australian festival listed in Billboard’s 2014 Top 10 festivals.
Biography
Peter Noble has been a music industry professional for over forty years and his contribution to the industry has been recognised with many accolades including the Rolling Stone Award for his services to Australian music.
Drawn to music from an early age, the Sydney-born bassist played in rock, soul and blues bands during the 1960s and '70s, taking leading roles with artists including Clapham Junction, and Marcia Hines. Following extensive national and international touring, Peter settled in the USA and set up Portland, Oregon’s first International Jazz Festival, and was house booker at The Earth venue.
Peter returned home to Australia at the beginning of the 1980s, and became a pioneer for blues touring in Australia. As a direct result of Noble’s efforts, soul, jazz, blues and reggae artists found a promoter, and a wide audience in Australia for the first time.
He began booking international acts in Byron Bay with the East Coast Blues Festival in 1990, and became a director in 1993. Peter coined the term "Blues & Roots Music Festival" in 1996 to encompass the growing reach and flavour of the festival – a term which would soon find common usage throughout the Australian music industry - typified when within 12 months the ARIA Awards created a Blues & Roots category as one of their major awards.
Peter became a pioneer for blues, jazz, roots and indie music touring in Australia, as well as running AIM Records, which became the first and only Australian independent label to win a Grammy Award in 2008 for ‘Best Zydeco Or Cajun Music Album’, by Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience. The same year the lable got nominated for a second Grammy for Best Tropical Album 'Greetings From Havana'. Noble has worked in many areas of the music business including record producing, touring artists through his company Bluesfest Touring, artist management, setting up the Australian Artists Agency in the early '70s, event site development, and festival presentations throughout Australia and South East Asia.
Noble’s long-standing dream to produce an Indigenous festival was realised in 2013 when he collaborated with leading cultural creative Rhoda Roberts, producing the inaugural Boomerang Festival: a ground-breaking Indigenous festival for all Australians held at the home of Bluesfest, the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, to extensive acclaim.
As the Director of the Byron Bay festival, Peter is passionate about social and environmental responsibility and is philanthropic, supporting many charities and community groups, and ensuring his events uphold their commitment to environmental conservation and animal welfare. This is reflected in the festival winning six International A Greener Festival Awards since 2007.
Bluesfest is respected for creating ongoing employment and contracts for individuals and small businesses in the Byron Bay and the Northern Rivers, a small regional part of Australia with limited employment opportunities. It contributes over $40 million annually to the NSW economy, and has provided countless opportunities for local musicians, artists and business people through performance platforms, stalls, and networks.
Peter Noble is an ardent music aficionado whose work has shaped what is now cemented as one of the largest and revered music events in the world. He spends his time working and living between Byron Bay and Bali.
Awards
AWARDS SUMMARY – BLUESFEST
BLUESFEST AWARDS
BLUESFEST NOMINATIONS